Your first hour

SILVERWAKE teaches itself as you play. This page is the map for what comes after the tutorial: how a run is shaped, what to spend time on, and what the game will not tell you.

The tutorial

Your first run opens with the tutorial. You wake in a sealed room with one glowing wall: fly into it and stay against it until it breaks. That is your first false wall, and the rest of the game hides secrets the same way.

Behind it is your first boss, the Lodestone Scarab. Here nothing can bring you down, and the game stops to show you each tool as you need it: flying, dashing, the melee strike, your two guns, an ability, the wall-button items, slow-mo, the Parry, and floor marks. You will meet the Scarab again in sector 1 at full strength.

Skipped a lesson? The tutorial stays on the start menu, and Controls covers every gesture. Settings also has a short How to play page.

The shape of a run

Fly through a sector. Ten sectors in all, each laid out anew every run. Doors seal while you fight and open when the room is clear.
Dock at Lantern Docks. They save the run, refill your hull, top up your items, and are the only place to change your gear. See Docks, death and XP.
Earn the Guardian. Its door stays barred until you have cleared 80% of the sector's fights or beaten 2 of its hidden bosses.
Silence the Guardian. Each one opens the next sector for good, and some also open a new gun.

Rooms you clear stay clear, even after a death or a reload, so a fall never undoes your progress through a sector.

Good first habits

Keep the boss in front of you. Your gun fires where you are facing, and you face where you drag. There is no auto-aim beyond a tiny bend on near misses (the Wisp Seeker is the one exception).
Watch for the warning, then move. Every attack shows itself first, by a pose or a mark on the floor. See Reading attacks.
Use your items. The next dock tops them up to a small kit, so a Missile saved for later is often a Missile wasted.
Press on the walls. In sectors 1 to 4, false walls glow while shut. Finding them early teaches you where to look later, when nothing marks them.
Visit the skill tree often. XP buys permanent skills, and it is the only currency in the game. A skill works in the run you buy it in.

What is free

The tutorial and sectors 1 to 3 are free, with their Guardians and hidden lairs. One optional Full Game purchase opens sectors 4 to 10 and removes adverts. Adverts are opt-in, offered only on the results screen after a run. See the FAQ.